Redemption
by angelinexo
Summary: SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE 3B FINALE! Aiden wakes up to see the last person he ever thought would greet him in death. As they rehash his life choices, Aiden finally finds peace and redemption.


**SPOILER ALERT if you haven't seen the 3B finale. I, for one, cried at Aiden's death, so I had to give him a better ending, for my own peace of mind. I wrote this somewhat quickly, so please excuse any errors. Please let me know what you think!**

* * *

"Open your eyes, Aiden."

Aiden opened his eyes and was struck by how quiet it was. He realized he was lying on the ground and when he got up, he saw the source of the familiar voice.

"Rory."

"It's been a while since anyone's called me that," she smiled at him. She paused before taking a few steps toward him.

"You died," he accused, warily.

"Ethan always was the more sensitive of you two," she smirked.

"What's going on? Where's Ethan? And Derek? And the Oni?" Aiden said, whipping his head around, expecting them to pop out of thin air. Rory's smile dropped.

"Don't you remember, Aiden?"

Aiden closed his eyes and the final moments of his life flashed before him. The scene of Ethan holding him lingered. When he opened his eyes, his face was wet with tears.

"No," he said angrily. "This is an illusion. This isn't real. It's another one of those fox tricks." He took a step backward, away from Rory, as if afraid she would attack him.

"This is real, Aiden," she said gently, wary of his claws that had emerged. "It's me. It's Rory. Your Rory. You're the only one who could call me that. You always made Ethan call me Aurora. Please just think."

"Prove it," Aiden said, blue eyes bright and teeth bared.

Without hesitating, she slowly walked towards him, hands up in submission. He was still in attack mode when she stood right in front of him, breathing evenly.

"The first words I ever said to you were 'Why are you so mean?'" she smiled lightly. "And my last words to you were 'I forgive you.'" A tear rolled down her face as she slowly lifted her face to kiss him.

Aiden's teeth and claws retracted as he kissed her, holding her tight against him, one hand on her hips, the other in her hair. When he pulled away, he was crying again.

"I killed you," he cried, falling to his knees. "I killed the woman I loved."

_Aiden looked at the girl lying on his chest. Her eyes were closed and she was sleeping peacefully, the sheets wrapped up to her chest. _

_He had to kill her._

_Deucalion had reached out to him and his brother a few weeks earlier. Promised them they could become stronger than their entire pack combined. Become Alpha twins, and join a pack filled with alphas. They would never have to do the bitch work again. Everyone would fear and respect them. It was what he and Ethan had always dreamed of. _

_But they had to kill their entire pack._

_Including Rory. The only member of their pack who had treated them with kindness, and always had, ever since they were children. Ethan and Aiden's best friend besides each other. The only woman Aiden had ever loved. _

_But the life they had wasn't worth living at all. Not to either of the twins. Which is why they had told Deucalion that morning that they would do it. They were in._

_Rory stirred in her sleep, opening her eyes and smiling lazily._

"_What's wrong, sweetie?" she asked him. Aiden could sense his brother waiting in the other room, waiting for the signal to strike the rest of their pack. They knew Rory's death would be the hardest, and that it had to be the first one done._

"_I love you, Rory," he whispered, before thrusting his claws into her chest. There were tears in his eyes._

"_Aiden," she coughed, blood in the corners of her mouth. _

"_I'm sorry," Aiden cried. "It's the only way for a better life for me and Ethan. But I love you. I love you so much."_

"_I love you too," Rory struggled to say. Her heartbeat was slowing, and her breaths becoming uneven. "And I forgive you." _

_Aiden cried as she took her last breath in his arms, and when he opened his eyes, they were a bright blue._

Rory got on her knees next to him and pulled him to her, rubbing circles on his back.

"It's okay, Aiden, sweetie, it's okay," she whispered into his ear. "I've been dead a few years now. I've accepted it and moved on. It's your death we need to deal with."

"I killed you to further my own ambitions, and you want to focus on me?" Aiden asked.

"I've come to peace with my death," Rory told him. "And I forgave you long ago. I know how our pack treated you. Like the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. And I did nothing to stop them. I know that you did what you had to do, and I do not blame you."

"But I do," Aiden cried. "I sacrificed you just so I could be powerful. And now, I'm dead, and separated from my twin brother for the first time in our entire lives. I can't even imagine what he's going through, and I'm here, with the woman I loved and killed in some form of hell."

"Aiden, stop it!" she roared, wolfed out. She took a deep breath before returning to her human form. "I am sitting here in front of you telling you that it's okay." She cupped his face in her hands in an effort to soothe him. "This isn't hell. It's… whatever you want it to be."

"What was it for you?" he asked shakily, though calmer.

"Do you remember that time we played hookie and took your bike out to the coast?" she asked him.

"Where we got that cottage on the beach? With a forest in the backyard?" Aiden asked, his breathing even again.

"That's what it was for me for a long time," she told him. "The ocean on one side, the forest for hunting and running on the other. And right in the middle, home. There was just one thing missing, one thing I could do nothing but wait for."

"What was that?"

"You, of course," she smiled as she rolled her eyes. "Sure, at first I was a little mad, upset, and hurt. Because I was here alone. But I could watch over you sometimes. And so I learned to come to peace with it as I watched you grow and move on."

"I didn't grow," Aiden mumbled, embarrassed. "I became cold and ruthless. Even more than Ethan." He looked at her solemnly. "Killing you killed the good in me."

"It's true, that your excessive cruelty stemmed from my death," Rory said. "But you tried to redeem yourself, with Scott and his pack. With Lydia."

"I didn't love her," he instantly said. "Not the way I loved you."

"I know that, silly," she teased, scrunching her face at him, causing him to smile. "But you were on the way there. You were trying to be better for her. Maybe at first it was to get into her pants. But she grew on you. Just like I did. And she was starting to like you back."

"No, she was always secretly into Stiles," Aiden argued.

"It always did take you a while to accept someone's love."

"Because I don't deserve it," Aiden insisted. "I don't understand why I get this," he gestured around him, as the setting had changed to the beachside cottage while Rory was speaking. "Why I get you, after everything I've done."

"Because in your death, you redeemed yourself," she told him. "You sacrificed your life to help a pack that didn't even trust you. You helped them win. Maybe it took a pep talk to get you out there in the first place, but in the heat of the battle, when instincts took over, you grabbed that arrowhead and killed the Oni that was threatening everyone."

"And because of that…" Aiden started. "I get…"

"Me," Rory grinned. "And all of this. We get our happy ending, until it's time for Ethan to join us, and then we have a happy ending together. You may have died tonight, Ethan, but…"

"We won."


End file.
